First published in 2008 by the British postcolonial novelist Hanif Kureishi (born December 5th, 1954, of Pakistani origins), “Something to Tell You" seems to offer a particularly challenging cultural discourse on at least two distinct levels. The first is blatantly generic, negotiating the very premises of what constitutes narrative-ness, both conventional and contemporary. It interrogates common or traditionally acceptable tenets of narration, such as the sequence of events or characterization. The second is duly ontological, determining the kind of sentiment enjoyed in reception, which, in this particular case, is defined by the incapacity to find positive fulfilment, embodied as a sense of loss and yearning for solid meaning rather than a sense of fulfilment by familiarity and identification. This paper, in other words, will offer its definitions of "tense" and "being" as two areas of intellectual investigation presented by contemporary narratives, of which this is but an example to interrogate the nature and value of cultural contemporaneity.
On the other hand, it will offer its redefinition of the aesthetic and cultural dimensions implied by this novel's particular formal and contextual features. On the one hand, this article discusses narrative as a purely philosophic expression contemplating the whats of human intellectuality whose very nature often assumes forms of inter-connectivity and homogeneity just like any generic narrative. On the other hand, it analyses the narrative in this novel as a contemporary attempt to interrogate conventional and modern generic boundaries for ontological and cultural purposes.